Daniel in Exile Part 15

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Daniel in Exile Part 16

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Okay, we are going to pray and then we will get started.

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Lord Jesus, again, as we open up your word and consider one of the tougher passages of scripture, we ask for the assistance of your

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Holy Spirit so that we may rightly understand your word. We ask this so that we may believe correctly and do accordingly.

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We ask in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so last week we were doing an excursus on the

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Antichrist. You'll note we're doing the Antichrist teaching. We're taking several weeks to work through this. The reason being is that, number one, this is a tough passage of scripture.

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Number two, it's important that we not get caught up in some of the weird, like overly focused speculations as it relates to the

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Antichrist. And last week I noted that there is a tough portion of Daniel 11, verse 37, which is super highly debated.

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And our attitude towards this needs to be that we recognize that there may be a couple of different ways to rightly understand the text.

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And so when there is ambiguity like this, one of the things I recommend is kind of keep all in your notes and then if you happen to be alive when the man of lawlessness shows up, you can sit there and go, oh, that's how the combination worked, right?

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But you'll note that the one thing we can say about the man of lawlessness, the

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Antichrist, is that he's primarily a churchman, secondarily a politician.

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That's how this works. And so last week we started looking at Dr.

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Steinman's excursus on the discussion regarding the Lutheran confessions and how they quote

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Daniel and how they treat the doctrine of the Antichrist. So if you, again, remember, the

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Antichrist, based on Daniel 11, 37, it could have something to do with female deities.

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That's one way of looking at the Hebrew. The other way of looking at the Hebrew is the traditional way that says that the man of lawlessness will not have any attraction to women, all right?

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And it uses a very weird kind of phrasing and that's how it gets translated in the

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Septuagint. And then the question is how is that to be interpreted? Obviously, one of the options on the table is celibacy.

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That, you know, the guy is just legitimately a celibate. And also the other bit, because there's the forbidding of traditional marriage, there is a hot debate as to whether or not that could also be hinting at the fact that he might have same -sex attractional issues.

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That's the reason why he's not attracted to women. How is this all gonna play out? Keep all your options on the table and when he shows up, you'll say, oh, there it is, right?

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You know, because we're dealing with a future text and you'll note that those are the three primary ways right now in which this is being debated and I legitimately am not convinced by any particular argument.

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I just am not. I would note that celibacy seems to be my preferred way of looking at it because that just kind of tidily handles it very easily.

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But, you know, and not only that, it then fits with the concept of the office of the papacy being the

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Antichrist. It fits in there really tidily and you'll note that Roman Catholics forbid their clergy from marrying, which has led to all kinds of horrific, horrific sexual crimes against kids and others, right?

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Okay, so we're gonna back up just for context's sake in Steinman's commentary and I know, you know, we're doing a lot of commentary, a little bit of scripture.

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We will get to more scripture as we kind of work our way through these last bits. In the Apology of the

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Augsburg Confession, section 24 versus, you know, paragraphs 44 through 48,

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Melanchthon cites Daniel as he responds to the Roman Catholic criticism that the reformers, the

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Protestant reformers were, quote, desolating the churches by minimizing the use of statues and other adornments not mandated in scripture.

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If you attend a church and they don't have candles and they don't have a statue of Norwegian Jesus, they're totally fine.

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Neither candles nor statues of Norwegian Jesus or any kind of adornments are commanded by scripture.

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You know, so if you want to conduct a clandestine church service so that the authorities do not put you in the gulag and you conduct that church service out in the forest, you can do that.

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You conduct the church service in the catacombs, in the tombs, you can do that. Well, you know, I do find that one of the creepier things.

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You know, can you imagine having church in the catacomb where there's like corpses rotting like over there? You know, it seems a little unnerving to me.

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It's like Mikey's good time. Yeah, right. Too bad Mikey's not here to defend himself but yeah, you get the idea there.

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Okay, so they accuse the

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Protestant churches of desolating churches by getting rid of some of these things. You're not required to have stained glass, you're not required to have statues, not required to have anything, right?

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Is that adiaphora? Yeah, that's adiaphora. It's neither commanded nor forbidden, okay? So if you attend, so let's say that you were traveling and you found a confessional

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Lutheran church. You've listened to the pastor's sermons online. You go, yeah, this guy's solid. He really knows how to exegete text.

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He preaches law and gospel and he really placards Christ and you walk into the building and it's pure white walls as far as the eye can see.

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No adornment whatsoever. Do you walk out? No, because the preaching of the word is the thing that matters, right?

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So these adornments are not mandated nor are they forbidden by scripture. There are certain things that are forbidden by scripture, by the way.

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So Norwegian Jesus, this comes up as a controversial topic from time to time. Might as well talk about him now since he's covered up.

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Right. He can't hear us right now. Right.

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But Norwegian Jesus, that by the way is a very, that's a depiction of a very, very famous statue as it relates to Christ.

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Very, very famous regarding the resurrected Christ. But here's the thing.

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There are people who sit there and go, well, the second commandment says you shall not make any graven images. No, that's not actually the second commandment.

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And I always point people to the fact that the, let's say kind of Protestants in the reformed sense, they've tweaked the 10 commandments and kind of reworked them.

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In fact, let me do this because it's always worth discussing since I brought it up because I'm sure he's a topic of discussion for some today.

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But when we go to Exodus chapter 20, we'll note that the first commandment, you shall have no other gods.

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Then the commandment, you shall not make for yourself carved image. That's a subset of the first commandment.

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And then note here, this is not a blanket prohibition against art, you know, legitimate art.

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You shall not make for yourself a carved image, and watch this, of anything or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.

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People get really bent out of shape when they see a depiction of Jesus. But I sit there and go, have you read the actual verse in Exodus 20?

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You can't make an image of anything, all right? So, you know, when I teach in my catechism class and I'm sitting in my office upstairs, somebody gifted me with a gift of a pirate

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Mr. Potato Head, okay? And so I will pull pirate Mr. Potato Head out and I will ask if we just were to use a wooden interpretation of this text and stop right here, am

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I allowed to have pirate Mr. Potato Head in my office? The answer is no.

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Well, what about that beautiful carved image you have of Pacific gray whales, right?

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You know, beautiful animals. And if you haven't seen some of the beautiful wooden artwork that they make regarding them, when I lived in California, it was very common to see things like that in like Laguna Beach and stuff like that at their art festivals.

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Are we allowed to have a depiction of Pacific gray whales? No, nothing.

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You'll know everything is off the table, okay? But there's a caveat.

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You shall not bow down to them or serve them for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children of the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love and keep my commandments.

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The prohibition isn't against art. And you'll note that God commanded Moses to make a brass serpent, right?

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A fiery serpent. He made a, sorry, not brass, bronze. Bronze, he made a bronze serpent. And that was an image of something on the earth, was it not?

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I would note that a serpent is a thing on planet Earth. And yet Moses didn't sin in making the bronze serpent because it wasn't created for the purpose of people bowing down and saying, oh, you are our

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God, you're the one who let, that's the idea. Funny that you would say that.

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If you were Amish, yes. So the question was, does that rule out photographs? You'll note that any image whatsoever created for the purpose of you literally worshiping the thing and saying, you are my

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God, that is forbidden. Doesn't matter if it's an image of a snail, a snake, a

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Lamborghini Countach. Although I don't see how anyone can go wrong with that. You know, whatever, well,

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Aston Martin, definitely that goes into idolatry. But the idea here is that any image of anything can be used then for the purpose of worshiping it.

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And you'll note in the history of Israel then, that bronze serpent that Moses created was later set up in the temple complex on Mount Gerizim in the

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Northern Kingdom and was worshiped as if it were a deity and they named that thing

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Nuhashton, right? So, and that thing had to be broken as a result of that and that's what happened.

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You know, this is why sometimes we can't have good things. So where a church crosses the line is not in having depictions of Jesus or having crosses.

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You'll note that we have nativity scenes in our houses every Christmas and there's a depiction of Jesus right there.

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And no one really bats an eyelash at these things. The issue is creating an image or likeness to bow down to it and say, this is my

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God. You wanna get an example of what that looks like? Travel to India, right? Okay, there are idols everywhere and people legitimately are bowing down and they're engaging in rank idolatry.

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So we always have to make careful distinctions then as Christians. But all that being said, that again, so it falls into adiaphora.

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Is a church required to have a statue? No. Are they forbidden? No. Right, okay.

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I'm glad, yes, let's go on the record. Don Matson has requested.

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Do I have a second on the motion, by the way? Yeah, yeah. So just for the record,

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I did not bring the statue of Norwegian Jesus when I was called to Kongsvigar back in June of 2014.

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Okay, it was here, it's been here since the 1930s. Right, so it predates me by a long time.

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In fact, it predates my parents. Okay, so yeah, so then

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I get, yeah, that's right. There are people slandering me claiming that I bow down to this thing. No, actually, I don't. You'll note that I genuflect in front of the altar.

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Okay, not Norwegian Jesus. He happens to be on top of the altar, but every Lutheran pastor that's confessional will actually basically locate the presence of Christ on the altar, and so the reason why

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I do this is in order to respect Christ's presence, not

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Norwegian Jesus. If Norwegian Jesus wasn't there, I'd do the same thing, because it's the altar, right?

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Anyway, so if you ever see anyone out there saying, Pastor Roseborough, he's an idolater. He bowed down to Norwegian Jesus, and Norwegian Jesus, he doesn't even have the stigmata on his hands, therefore he's a false

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Christ altogether. Man, boy, that Roseborough, he's telling people to go and wreck idolatry.

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The person doesn't know what they're talking about. Okay, and those are the same people who will say I'm a

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Freemason and weird things like this. I'm not. Okay. Okay. The irony.

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I know. Absolutely.

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So, and this is the thing, is that artwork, really, the question was, wasn't artwork used prior to before people could really read?

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Literacy was a thing. Was artwork used to then proclaim the gospel? Yes, and I would note, very meaningfully done, and one of the things that you have to kind of notice in our modern era, now, when

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I talk about the modern era, I'm gonna go from the time of Darwin forward, right? There has been an overt move to get rid of good

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Christian art. Have you ever been into, like, an old Roman Catholic cathedral in an urban part of, you know, the cities?

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Like, one of the things I've done in the past with friends is, like, go specifically to look at urban cathedrals in, like, the

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Chicago area, and one of the things that has struck me is that some of these Roman Catholic churches, they have removed their historically beautiful stained glass, okay, where depictions of the apostles of Christ and things like this, and they have replaced it with pixel art, okay?

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And what I mean by pixel art is that it's basically just colored glass in no particular, it's just a random pattern, you know?

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And so the idea then is that in the era when it was illiterate, you'd sit there and you'd look, okay, this is what the priest is talking about, this is what the pastor's talking about, and you can kind of follow along because they couldn't read.

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And that was for most of human history, by the way. Having a large percentage of the population being able to read, that's a very recent phenomenon, right?

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So very recent. So art has played a very instructive role throughout the

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Christian church, and not only that, our oldest Christian churches that we know, the archeological sites, the artwork is on the floor, it's in the walls and stuff like that, depicting

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Christ and the apostles in mosaic. And it's just brilliant stuff, you know?

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So for people to come along and just come up with this really ludicrous, like legalistic thing, you can't have any images of Jesus or whatever, you guys don't know what you're talking about.

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Jesus is not Muhammad. No, no, no, Jesus is not Muhammad, right? No, he's got beauty, and to appreciate music.

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Yes! All right, so Marilyn says that God has made us to appreciate that beauty, and good music and good art feeds our soul.

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Yes, it does. And that's kind of a lost thing. In fact, now

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I'm really off on a tangent. Okay. But when we talk about art, good art, okay?

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Really good art, the beauty behind it always takes us to the divine, okay?

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It always takes us into a realm where the heavens declare the glory of God, the scriptures say, and the beauty of the creation.

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In fact, it specifically says in the scripture that God created the trees not only for shade, but for beauty.

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And so beauty is one of these things that is a gift from God. And you'll note that a follow art history in the past couple of hundred years, where has it gone from like classical artwork that depicts human beings in like beautiful, like epic scenes, to somebody taking a piece of duct tape and putting a banana on a wall, okay?

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And calling it art, okay? That's not beauty. And the people who are putting together art like that, there's a famous artist who back,

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I think it was either in the late 50s or 60s, he put together an art display and it was a urinal, okay?

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And everyone thought how avant -garde, how? It's garbage, it's absolute garbage.

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It doesn't invoke beauty, all right? It invokes making me want to like, make water of my own, right?

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That's what it does. By the way, if you're ever dreaming, okay? And you come across a toilet, don't use it, okay?

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I'm just saying, okay? Right, that's right. Pay attention, don't use any bathroom facilities while you're dreaming.

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It goes very bad very quickly. But all that being said, when it comes to true artwork, you'll note the beauty of the things just causes to pause.

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And there's really something to be said about the divine and the beautiful. And so, and you'll note historically also, those people who were artists at the time when the

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Soviets took over Russia, all right? All artists were forbidden to make art for the sake of art.

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Same with the Nazis. All artists, all photographers, all sculptors, they were forced by these ideological regimes to no longer make art for the sake of beauty or for the sake of the art form itself.

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Art could only be used for the furthering of the party. So they actually had, so the

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Nazis took all of the good art out and put in their own artwork and Goebbels actually took all the old artwork and put it in this really run down section of town in a basement.

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People, like you were still allowed to see that, the basement became so flooded with people they had to shut it down and the museum was empty.

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Right, that's a good story. Yeah, so you'll note that ideologies don't make good artwork.

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And I would note that God makes some pretty spectacular stuff. We were out the other night during the geomagnetic storm and holy guacamole, that was some of the most beautiful things

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I've ever seen. Did you see it, James? Yeah. Yeah, it's like absolutely stunning. We looked up and it looked like the eye of God was right over our head.

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It was crazy stuff, but in the moment you literally, you felt like you were on the doorstep of God.

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Like right at, his presence was like all around because it was just so stunningly beautiful.

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Right, and so good artwork is something that you use in defiance of the devil.

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It represents the actual beauty of God and is used properly in a way that instructs people in the faith, you know, so you get the idea.

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But all right, let's now turn from art to the antichrist. Okay, who probably will not like art, okay.

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All right, now in the Confutation, this is Philip Melanchthon in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession.

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In the Confutation, our opponents wring their hands over the desolation of the temples. This is in air quotes.

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The altar standing unadorned without candles or statues. They call these trifles the ornament of the church.

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Daniel describes a vastly different desolation which is ignorance of the gospel. The people were swamped by the many different traditions and ideas and could not grasp the sum of Christian doctrine.

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I noted this last week because we did read this quote out last week. That's exactly what happens in all of these churches.

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And not just Roman churches, I'm talking about like today's NAR churches. And many of you are joining us online because you have been in these types of churches.

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And the one thing I've heard over and over and over again from people coming out of these churches, they never heard the

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Bible. There was a lot of preaching going on. There was a lot of teaching going on.

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But what was lost in the midst of the preaching and the teaching was the actual Scriptures and Christian doctrine.

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And so I sit there and you go, how many sermons do I have to listen to in these NAR churches where they have to constantly talk about, we are not cessationists, we believe in continuationism.

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And all they ever talk about is this. Gifts of the Spirit, gifts of the Spirit, gifts of the Spirit, gifts of the Spirit, gifts of the

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Spirit. When are you gonna talk about Jesus, right? And then in Roman churches, it's all the saints and Mary and all this other stuff, right?

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And then indulgences and satisfactions and everything and what gets lost.

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Christ and Him crucified for our sins. Which is ironic because in the Roman churches, they legitimately have ginormous crucifixes center of the sanctuary, right there for everybody to see.

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But the weird bit is in so many churches, Christ just gets papered over.

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So who among the people has ever understood our opponent's doctrine of penitence? Who can, by the way. Yet this is the principle doctrine of the

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Christian faith. Satisfactions and enumerations of sins were a torture for consciences.

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Could you imagine that if it were necessary in order for a sin to be forgiven, you had to remember it and then confess it privately to a priest?

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Could you imagine? Mike, you don't count. You've been there, you've done that, right?

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And then I was three years old and I hit my brother on the head with my choo -choo train.

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This is just sheer torture because if you can't speak it, enumerate it, and then have it forgiven directly by a priest, you're not forgiven of it.

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Forget that, okay? That ain't gonna work. And no scripture teaches that. Our opponents never mention faith by which we freely,

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I love this, note that word, freely receive forgiveness of sins. All their books and sermons were silent about the exercise of faith and its struggle with despair and about the free forgiveness of sins for Christ's sake.

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In addition, they horribly profaned the mass and introduced much wicked worship into the churches.

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This is the desolation that Daniel describes. Now remember kind of the four main characteristics of the work of Antichrist.

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And now we're talking about Antichrist in the broad sense, not the man of lawlessness in the narrow sense. Again, Antichrist promotes false doctrine that conflicts with the gospel of Christ, especially the central article of the true faith justification for Christ's sake by grace alone, through faith alone, and he claims the right to change doctrine established by Christ.

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Antichrist institutes forms of worship that conflict with the gospel, and they do, right?

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You'll note there's a reason why we do not sing I Have Decided to Follow Jesus here at Kongsvinger Lutheran Church, because it's false doctrine, right?

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And you'll note we don't sing Hillsong and Bethel music here either. Reason being is because it's just rank apostasy, or it doesn't sing anything at all, right?

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Okay, Antichrist rules in the church. He assumes the supreme right to forgive or retain sins in this life, and even claims jurisdiction over the fate of souls after this life.

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He is primarily a ruler in the church, although he claims to exercise temporal power as well. And the

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Antichrist makes himself out to be God. By usurping the authority and prerogatives of God himself, he is unwilling to be judged by the church or anyone else, and firstly, persecutes anyone who dissent, okay?

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Let me give you an example of a little Antichrist. When you have Kenneth Copeland say,

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I am a little God, right? That's the spirit of Antichrist at work.

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And you think Ken Copeland cares that I have a YouTube channel that says he's a heretic? Not at all. He just ignores me and continues to ignore me, and when he was called out for giving a false prophecy when he put an end to COVID -19 in March of 2020, right?

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That was very effective, okay? Did he repent and say, you know,

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I must be a false prophet? Nope, he just, well, I misheard the Lord. I misheard him, mm -hmm, right on, mm -hmm.

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Sure you did, okay? Yes. Yeah. So by the blessing of God, the priests in our churches pay attention to the ministry of the word.

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They teach the gospel of the blessing of Christ, and they show that the forgiveness of sins comes freely for Christ's sake.

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This teaching really consoles consciences. They add to it the teaching of the good works, which

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God commands, and they talk about the value and the use of the sacraments, right? So here at Kongsvinger, do you hear the word of God?

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Yes, all right? Do you hear the importance of good works and bearing fruit and keeping with repentance?

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Yep, how about the efficacy of the sacraments? Yes, all of the above, right?

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And all of this is like just biblical Christianity and historic Christianity. So Steinman continues, apparently the

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Roman Catholics were applying Daniel's description of the desolation of the temple to the effects of the

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Reformation. Exegetically, this commentary showed that Daniel, in fact, refers to two different desolations.

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One, the desecration of the temple by Antiochus IV, that is a desecration, and in 167, and after the advent of the

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Messiah, the destruction of the temple by the Romans in AD 70. It is clear from the context that Daniel is speaking of the cessation of the sacrifices on the altar of the

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Jerusalem temple. And to the complete destruction of the Jerusalem temple, both the

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Roman Catholics and the Lutherans applied those passages in a spiritual metaphorical way. The Catholics to the

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Reformation churches in the 16th century, and the Lutherans to the Roman Catholic church as a whole. Melanchthon's theological point is sound.

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The loss of a physical temple and its adornments pales in comparison to the loss of the gospel in both theology and in worship.

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That loss creates the worst kind of desolation among God's people. So if we lose

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Norwegian Jesus, but we still have the gospel here, we have everything that we need, right?

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So that's the point. But if we lose the gospel here, we got nothing.

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So the papal insistence on clerical celibacy could also be included under the first two characteristics of the antichrist as described in Daniel 11, and by the confessions.

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In the confessions, both Luther and Melanchthon mentioned the papal ban against clergy marriage as antichristian, and it is.

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And I'm gonna note here, when they put that ban into effect, they broke marriages up.

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The men who were married were forced to leave their wives. The papists had neither authority nor right to prohibit marriage and burden the divine estate of priests with perpetual celibacy.

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On the contrary, they acted like antichristian tyrannical and wicked scoundrels, and thereby they gave occasion for all sorts of horrible, abominable, and countless sins in which they are still involved.

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How much do you think the Roman church pays out every single year across the globe in damages done to families by celibate priests?

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I'm sorry, but sleeping with an altar boy is not celibacy. Right? All right, and actually

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I shouldn't even say it that way. Say raping an altar boy, because that's what that is. These kids can't consent to these things, right?

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So all sorts of horrible, abominable, countless sins in which they are still involved. As little as the power has been given to us or to them to make a woman out of a man, or a man out of a woman, or abolish distinctions of sex altogether.

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What a great quote. Wow. Look at that. From the small -called articles.

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Okay, Luther denying that a man can turn himself into a woman, wouldn't you know? I'm gonna have to put that on social media and see what kind of a storm

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I can create. It's not very progressive of him. It's historical. I give it five minutes before they bring up the

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Jews in their lives. Yeah. So let me read that again.

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As little as the power has been given to us or to them to make a woman out of a man, or a man out of a woman, or abolish distinctions of sex altogether.

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Dang, Luther. So little have they had the power to separate such creatures of God or forbid them to live together honestly in marriage.

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We are therefore unwilling to consent to their abominable celibacy, nor shall we suffer it.

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On the contrary, we desire marriage to be free, as God ordained and instituted, and we shall not disrupt or hinder

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God's work for St. Paul says that to do so is a doctrine of demons.

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And what he's quoting again from here is 1 Timothy 4. And again, pay attention to the details here because Luther is not engaging in his normal hyperbole.

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The Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons.

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Through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage?

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The forbidding of marriage is a demonic doctrine. And let's talk about how the name of Christ has been legitimately defamed as a result of this demonic ban because here's the thing.

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We're talking about countless stories of child after child after child being sexually molested by these priests who are unnaturally forced into the state of celibacy that do not have that gift at all, right?

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And as a result of it, how many documentaries have there been over the past decades about the corruption and the abuse of children in these churches?

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And so when people are putting money into the basket as it's being carried along and passed in front of them in the

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Roman Catholic Church, what they're really doing is that's a GoFundMe campaign to help

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Rome pay for their legal fees. And what's happened is that there are a countless number of people who legitimately hate the name of Christ because his representatives are engaging in these horrific crimes.

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The answer to the problem is simple, get a wife. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, you're right.

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And that's the thing, it's like one of the big common denominators of like all false forms of religion is there's sex cults, okay?

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And children usually are on the front line of that problem and it's horrifying what happens to them, absolutely terrifying, right?

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So you'll note, celibacy, the forbidding of marriage is a doctrine of demons, straight up, yeah.

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They're not married to God, they're married to Christ. Okay. Okay.

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Yeah. Right. Now, this is where we have to make a distinction.

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Historically, very early in the church, celibacy was considered to be a virtue.

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And especially in light of the completely raging out of control pagan immorality of the

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Roman era, okay? In those circumstances, and understand this, your chances of living past your 40s were not good, okay?

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That it was legitimately considered a virtue to just say, I'm not bringing a kid into this mess,

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I'm gonna devote myself to the service of the church and Christ. And that was an honorable thing.

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But you'll note then that we have this habit as human beings because of our inherent sinfulness to take things that are good and turn them into something bad.

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I have no problem if somebody says, listen, I'm looking at how evil the world is, I'm not gonna get married, and there's no way

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I'm bringing kids into the world, I'm gonna devote myself to the furthering of the gospel. Good on you, okay? But you'll note what happens in the medieval period is a complete twisting of this concept.

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So much so that it was a very common thing during the

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Middle Ages, you had different types of monastic movements. And they would start off as trying to get back to something a little bit more pure, and then as they became established, there would be corruption that crept in, and monasteries and convents were not exactly as virtuous as they were supposed to be, and then there had to be reform, and a cleaning things up, and then a going back to the basics and kind of stuff, so you have this constant problem.

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But the issue is is that nowhere in scripture are we commanded to engage in celibacy.

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In fact, it's very clear in scripture that if you don't have this gift, it is better to marry than burn with passion and then burn in hell, all right?

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There's a reason why I'm not celibate, it's because when I was 13, I discovered girls. Okay, the hormones clicked on and whoa!

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Okay, celibacy wasn't on the table, and as a result of it, marriage was, right?

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And that's the way God has made us. But when a domination takes the concept of celibacy, forces it, mandates it for its pastors, and then will not relent, even on the fact that this experiment has completely failed, all right?

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And they still won't relent, the source of that doctrine legitimately is the devil. And the devil then has had them buy into this false doctrine for the purpose of defaming

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Christ. And let's just say it, the devil has succeeded spectacularly. And why the

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Roman Church doesn't sit there and go, you know, it says right here in 1 Timothy 4 that that's an actual doctrine of demons, and maybe we should rethink it, is beyond me, right?

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And so you'll know over and again, I've seen this happen a few times over the past couple of decades, real conversations taking place, should

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Rome lift the ban on marriage, right? Yes, the answer is yes, but it never results in anything, right?

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All right, coming back here. So in the Apology, Melanchthon makes specific reference to Daniel.

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He declares that this teaching of the papacy fulfills Daniel's prophecy that the Antichrist will not favor desire of women.

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And explains, Daniel says that it is characteristic of Antichrist kingdom, watch this.

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It is characteristic of Antichrist kingdom to despise women. What's the name of that documentary that came out last year?

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What is a woman? Are we not living this right now?

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Okay. We had a Supreme Court nominee who became a

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Supreme Court justice, who could not answer the question, what is a woman? I have been watching testimony from female athletes on the college level, who are trying to get some kind of a justice because they are being forced to compete with biological males.

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If that's not hatred of women, I don't know what is. Don't sit here and tell me you love women when you are destroying women and their sports, okay?

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Yeah, right? And again, note, this is a characteristic of the

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Antichrist's kingdom. The prohibition of marriage is contrary to the scriptures, which portray marriage of believers as a holiest state within which the mutual love of Christ and his bride, the church, is displayed.

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If you're not sure about this, read the Song of Songs, right? Psalm 45,

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Ephesians 5, 21 to 33. St. Paul prophesied that in the last days, those who follow deceiving spirits and the teachings of demons will forbid marriage.

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Prohibiting the natural God -created desire consummated in the holy state of marriage can lead to sexual sins, including homosexuality, contrary to the express will of God.

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The confessions recognize that the requirement of clergy celibacy is contrary to God's order of creation and can lead to all manner of unmentionable sins.

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Unfortunately, those sins are not only being mentioned today they are being championed.

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And if you speak against those sins as sins, you will be canceled.

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In regard to the promotion of false doctrine and worship Melanchthon in the Apology Cites, Daniel 1138 thrice.

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I love how he used the word thrice here. I don't normally see people use that word anymore. In the first instance, he cites the papacy's invention of rites that are counter to the gospel and says that this is what

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Daniel is describing in 1138 when he says that the Antichrist will honor a God whom his fathers did not know.

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So in the Apology, Melanchthon states, what need is there for words in a matter so clear?

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If our opponents defend the notion that these human rights merit justification, grace and the forgiveness of sins, they are simply establishing the kingdom of the

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Antichrist. The kingdom of Antichrist is a new kind of worship of God devised by human authority in opposition to Christ.

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Thus, the kingdom of Muhammad has rights and works by which it seeks to be justified before God, denying that men are freely justified before God by faith for Christ's sake.

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So the papacy will also be a part of the kingdom of the Antichrist if it maintains that human rights justify, rites being

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R -I -T -S, not R -I -G -H -T -S, right? That human rights, you know, we light this candle, we smell this incense, we ring this bell, we're justified by doing those things, right?

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Let's see here, where was I? So thus, the kingdom of Muhammad has rights, right? And then the

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Romans will have the kingdom of Antichrist, they maintain that human rights justify. So they take honor away from Christ when they teach that we are not justified freely for his sake, but by such rights, especially when they teach that for justification such rights are not only useful, but also necessary.

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So the confutation, which was something that was presented in contradiction to the

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Augsburg Confession, the confutation condemns our statement in the article of the church that for the true unity of the church, it's necessary that rights instituted by men and everywhere be alike.

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In the 11th chapter, Daniel says that the invention of human rights will be the very form and constitution of the kingdom of the

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Antichrist. This is what he says, he shall honor the god of fortresses instead of these. A god whom his fathers did not know, he shall honor with gold and silver, with precious stones and costly gifts.

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Here he's describing the invention of rights, for he says that a god will be worshiped whom the fathers did not know.

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And this is in the context of the Christian church. Shortly thereafter, in the second instance, he specifically critiques the

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Roman claim that such humanly invented rights can merit God's grace and the forgiveness of sins.

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He then quotes again the last part of Daniel. We are amazed when our opponents maintain that traditions have another purpose, namely to merit the forgiveness of sins, grace and justification.

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What is this but honoring God with gold and silver and precious stones, believing that he is reconciled by a variety of vestments, ornaments, innumerable similar observances in the human traditions.

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In Colossians 2 .23, Paul writes that traditions have an appearance of wisdom, and indeed they have.

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This good order is very becoming in the church and is therefore necessary. But because human reason does not understand the righteousness of faith, it naturally supposes that such works justify men and reconcile

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God, right? This is one of the things that I absolutely insist on, and that is that I wear a uniform, so that when

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I die or retire, that the next guy who comes after me, if he's wearing the same uniform, he can just slot right in and pick right up right where I left off, and no one here would skip a beat, right?

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But there are guys within confessional Lutheranism, or at least within the visible spectrum of it, who are dangerously close to making this a requirement, and almost making it sound like you can't truly be a confessional

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Lutheran pastor if you don't wear this specific uniform. And as soon as those guys take that leap, if I show up on a

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Sunday wearing khaki shorts, my Birkenstocks and a

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Hawaiian shirt, you know what happened, okay? Skinny jeans. I can't get into skinny jeans. I can get into them,

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I just can't get out of them. You can get into them once. Once, yeah, right. So, but the idea, as soon as somebody makes this a requirement like this, and question whether or not somebody's even saved a truly a pastor based upon something outward like this, then

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I am duty -bound to disobey their regulations, okay? I am duty -bound to disobey, to basically say that these guys are heretics, right?

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I will not obey their ordinance, nor will I allow myself to be confused with them, okay?

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You get the idea. So in the third instance, he notes that the papacy promotes the worship of things rather than the proclamation of the gospel.

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Yep, okay. Apparently, he again has in mind gold, silver, precious stones, highly prized things at the end of Daniel.

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The real adornment of the churches is godly, practical, and clear teaching.

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The godly use of the sacraments, ardent prayer and the like, candles, golden vessels, ornaments like that are fitting, but they are not the peculiar adornment of the church.

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If our opponents center their worship in such things rather than in the proclamation of the gospel, in faith, and in the struggles, they should be classified with those whom

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Daniel describes as worshiping their God with their gold and their silver, okay? With regard to the third characteristic of the

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Antichrist, the Apology first cites the New Testament teaching that the Antichrist will rule in the church.

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Paul also predicts that the Antichrist will take his seat in the temple of God, and that's the church, okay?

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That is, he will rule and hold office in the church. Later, in reference to the whole of Daniel, to demonstrate that the scriptures depict the

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Antichrist as a ruler who exercises power in both the church and then in the world, the

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Apology states, perhaps our opponents demand some such definition of the church as the following.

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It is the supreme outward monarchy of the whole world in which the Roman pontiff must have unlimited power beyond question or censure.

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He may establish articles of faith, abolish the scriptures by his leave, institute devotions and sacrifices, enact whatever laws he pleases, excuse and exempt men from any laws, divine, canonical, or civil as he wishes.

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From him, the emperor and all kings have received their power and right to rule, and this at Christ's command.

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For as the father subjected everything to him, so now this right has been transferred to the pope.

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Therefore, the pope must be lord of the whole world, of all the kingdoms of the world, and of all public and private affairs.

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He must have plenary power in both the temporal and the spiritual realm, both swords, the temporal, both swords, the temporal and the spiritual.

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Now this definition of the papal kingdom rather than of the church of Christ has its author not only the canonist, but also

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Daniel. The fourth characteristic of the antichrist is mentioned by Luther in the small called articles.

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Luther refers to St. Paul's statement in Second Thessalonians 2 .4, which basically states that the antichrist opposes and exalts himself above every so -called god or object of worship so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be

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God. That he could just as easily have cited the Old Testament background for that passage from Daniel 11 .36

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-37, which states that the eschatological king will exalt himself, magnify himself over every god.

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He also will not favor desire of women or any god because he will magnify himself above all.

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Luther states, this is a powerful demonstration that the pope is the real antichrist who has raised himself over and set himself against Christ.

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For the pope will not permit Christians to be saved except by his own power, which amounts to nothing since he's neither established nor commanded by God.

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This is actually what St. Paul calls exalting oneself over and against God. Neither the

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Turks nor the Tartars, great as their enmity against Christians, do this. Those who desire to do so, they allow to believe in Christ and they receive bodily tribute and obedience from Christians.

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However, the pope will not permit such faith, but asserts that one must be obedient to him in order to be saved.

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This we are unwilling to do even if we have to die for it in God's name. All of this is a consequence of wishing to be the head of the

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Christian church by divine right. He had to set himself up as equal to and above Christ and to proclaim himself the head and then the

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Lord of the church and finally of the whole world. He went so far as to claim to be an earthly god and even presumed to issue orders to the angels in heaven.

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Intriguingly, the confessions do not use other descriptions in the prophecies of Daniel that would have been helpful for making the case that the papacy fulfills the biblical portrait of the antichrist.

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There are at least five of these. First, Daniel depicts the antichrist as having a mouth speaking great things, speaking words against the most high and against the

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God of gods, wonderful things. These descriptions fit well with the assertion that the pope has attacked

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Christ by claiming that his own words and doctrines have divine authority and by teaching another gospel contrary to the gospel.

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Second, neither do the confessors mention that the papal attack on the gospel could be what Daniel prophesied will make war with the saints and wear out the saints of the most high.

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Third, the confessors also could have pointed out that the pope's attempts to change the gospel by imposing upon Christians rights and customs foreign to the gospel could be what

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Daniel was told about the little horn. It will intend to change the times and the laws.

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Fourth, given the widespread practice of simony in the medieval church, simony by the way is the sin of basically giving money for spiritual gifts.

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It's named after Simon the sorcerer. Anybody who attends Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, Bethel is engaging in simony.

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They are basically giving people the gifts of the spirit and teaching them how to operate in the gifts of the spirit for a price.

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That's what simony is. Given the widespread practice of simony in the medieval church at the time of the Reformation, the confessors could have noted that this was an abuse of temporal power mixed with ecclesiastical prerogatives fulfilling the third mark of the antichrist listed above and the words of Daniel about the eschatological king.

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To whoever acknowledge him, he will give great honor and make them rule over many. Moreover, he will parcel out land at a price.

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Fifth and finally, the antichrist is to endure throughout the church age. Note, the antichrist has been here the whole time.

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Okay, and we're not talking necessarily about the papacy at this point. And he will only be destroyed at the second coming of Christ.

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Thus, he will come to his end just before the resurrection on the last day. Many other identifications of the antichrist have been proposed, but the papacy is the only one that has continued to exist throughout the church age.

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In the early centuries of the Christian era, the Bishop of Rome did not claim authority over the other bishops or over all the churches.

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He was restrained until the demise of the Roman Empire in the fifth century AD. Subsequently, the

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Bishop of Rome claimed authority over all of Christendom and began to promote false doctrines and practices openly in many respects that abuse of power continues to this day.

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And here's where I have to end. So, who actually is the pope?

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Can we say he is the antichrist? Just a question. So, Jacob answers, asks the question. Jacob is in Malawi.

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Nice to have you guys in Malawi joining us. So, we're not saying that a specific pope is the antichrist.

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What we are saying is that the office of the papacy currently, you can say, is the office of the antichrist.

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And it's not a particular pope that we currently have to worry about. But we'll note, then, that we'll keep our eyes out for a miracle -working pope who exalts himself openly above God.

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That's something that we can look forward to. But what we can say is that anybody who exalts himself above Christ and claims to usurp

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Christ, that person is doing the work of the antichrist, all right? All right, we have to go.

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Actually, I have to go, because I've been preaching way too long lately. All right, peace to you, brothers and sisters. Lord willing, we'll see you next time.